The Big Problem Science Has With Religion

I've just been linked to a story I've seen before, entitled "the little problem science has with religion."  Since it's been around the block a few times and its author is unknown, I'll take the liberty of posting it in its entirety here.  I'll provide my thoughts and retorts throughout.  Quoted text is taken exactly as it was presented, without any alterations to the text or format, except to break it up for my commentary.

Note: Forgive the formatting errors in the quotations.  I'll try to fix it when I have the time, but I wanted to get this online quickly.

[quote]

"Let me explain the problem science has with religion." The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand....[/quote] This immediately identifies the story as a fiction.  Professors simply don't push antireligion in the classroom, and they certainly don't pick on students for their religious beliefs.  That's the fastest way to be out of a job.  But, even as a fiction, it could still be an interesting philosophical dialogue.  Let's see where they go with this, shall we? [quote]"You're a Christian, aren't you, son?" "Yes sir," the student says. "So you believe in God?" "Absolutely!" "Is God good?" "Sure! God's good." "Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?" "Yes." "Are you good or evil?" "The Bible says I'm evil." The professor grins knowingly. "Aha! The Bible!" He considers for a moment, "Here's one for you. Let's say there's a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help him? Would you try?" "Yes sir, I would." "So you're good!"[/quote] A reasonable, if a bit over-simplistic, observation.  Helping the sick is, by any reasonable moral standard, a good action. [quote]"I wouldn't say that." "But why not say that? You'd help a sick and maimed person if you could. Most of us would if we could. But God doesn't." The student does not answer, so the professor continues. "He doesn't, does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer, even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?" The student remains silent.[/quote] The student remains silent for a reason.  The professor's argument is valid.  Sure, there have been a few apologetics offered to counter this problem before, but none have stood up.  As the old saying goes... Is god willing to prevent suffering but not able?  Then he's not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he's not good. Is he neither willing nor able? Then why call him God? Is he both willing and able? Then why is there still suffering? [quote]"No, you can't, can you?" the professor says. He takes a sip of water from glass on his desk to give the student time to relax. "Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?" "Er...yes," the student says. "Is Satan good?" The student doesn't hesitate on this one, "No." "Then where does Satan come from?" The student falters, "From God." "That's right. God made Satan, didn't he? Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?" "Yes sir." "Evil's everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything, correct?" "Yes." "So who created evil?" The professor continued, "If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil." Again, the student has no answer.[/quote] Technically, this is flawed logic on the professor's part.  Presumably, God's creation of evil could have been a mistake, error of judgement or other faux pas.  However, if one assumes that God is both omniscient and omnipotent, as Christian doctrine teaches, the thought that evil could be a mistake is out of the question. Even the Bible makes this point perfectly clear, in Isaiah 45:7: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." With this in mind, it's no wonder the student has no answer, as his own Bible goes against what he's been taught to believe. [quote]"Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things, do they exist in this world?" The student squirms on his feet. "Yes." "So who created them?" The student does not answer again, so the professor repeats his question, "Who created them?" There is still no answer. Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace in front of the classroom. The class is mesmerized. "Tell me," he continues onto another student. "Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?" The student's voice betrays him and cracks. "Yes, professor, I do." The old man stops pacing, "Science says you have five (5) senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen Jesus?" "No sir. I've never seen Him." "Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus? Have you ever had any sensory perception of Jesus Christ, or God for that matter?" "No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't." "Yet you still believe in him?" "Yes." "According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?"[/quote] Here's where we run into a bit of a snag.  Science is not limited to human perception.  Science attempts to overcome the limits of human perception through experimentation, because we know our senses are flawed.  You don't have to see something to know it's there.  You do, however, require EVIDENCE.  And evidence can take many different forms. [quote]"Nothing," the student replies. "I only have my faith." "Yes, faith," the professor repeats. "And that is the problem science has with God. There is no evidence, only faith."[/quote] This is true.  There is no evidence, so science does have a problem with religion.  That doesn't mean we need to be able to see God, but in order to be accepted by science, we need some sort of evidence.  Faith, or belief without evidence, is the surrender of the mind. [quote]The student stands quietly for a moment, before asking a question of his own. "Professor, is there such thing as heat?" "Yes," the professor replies. "There's heat." "And is there such a thing as cold?" "Yes, son, there's cold too." "No sir, there isn't." The professor turns to face the student, obviously interested. The room suddenly becomes very quiet. The student begins to explain . . . "You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, unlimited heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat, but we don't have anything called 'cold.' We can hit up to 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold; otherwise we would be able to go colder than the lowest-458 degrees." Everybody or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-458 Fahrenheit) is the total absence of heat. You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it."[/quote] True.  I suspect any professor would realize this, and only use the word "cold" colloquially, but the student is not mistaken. [quote]Silence across the room. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom, sounding like a hammer. "What about darkness, professor. Is there such a thing as darkness?" "Yes," the professor replies without hesitation. What is night if it isn't darkness?"[/quote] Surely a professor would see the trap by this point.  That he'd walk into it again betrays the absurdity of the story. [quote]"You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light, but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and its called darkness, isn't it? That's the meaning we use to define the word. In reality, darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?" The professor begins to smile at the student in front of him. This will be a good semester. "So what point are you making, young man?" "Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with and so your conclusion must also be flawed." The professor's face cannot hide his surprise this time, "Flawed? Can you explain how?"[/quote] Yes, please explain.  This is where the story gets interesting. [quote]"You are working on the premise of duality," the student explains . . "You argue that there is life and then there's death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we canmeasure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought." It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the a bsence of it." Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?"[/quote] Oy vey!  There's a lot to talk about here.  Firstly, whether God is finite or infinite, measurable or not, there must be SOME evidence for his/her/its existence, or there's no reason to believe it.  I don't care if you can measure every detail of what it is, where it came from, what it can do.  I just want to see some evidence that it's actually there. True, science has not completely cracked the problem of human consciousness, though there have been remarkable advances.  The difference is clear, however--we know that we think from firsthand experience.  We can measure brain activity, and begin to understand the processes.  Not only do we have evidence of human consciousness, we are well on our way to understanding it through experimentation. Granted, death is not the opposite of life, in the same way that cold is not the opposite of heat.  But this is irrelevant.  If you're making claims of an afterlife, provide some evidence.  Otherwise, what's the point? Finally, evolved from a monkey?  I thought we'd dispatched that misconception years ago.  Humans are great apes.  We didn't evolve from any modern species, monkey or otherwise.  We share a recent common ancestry with chimpanzees, a slightly more distant ancestry with other primates, more distant still with all mammals, and so on.  All life on earth shares a common ancestry, but we did not "evolve from monkeys."  This is a straw-man argument. [quote]"If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do."[/quote] A good answer.  The professor should have schooled the student in basic middle-school biology, but I'll give him a pass in that he properly answered the question (avoiding the straw man) without derailing the conversation. [quote] "Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?" The professor begins to shake his head, still smiling, as he realizes where the argument is going; a very good semester, indeed.[/quote] Here is where things really fall apart.  Firstly, everyone who has witnessed a birth has witnessed evolution first hand.  Many scientists, particularly biologists, have witnessed speciation within the laboratory.  But the point isn't witnessing it firsthand.  The point is a preponderance of evidence.  We have amongst other things, fossils and genetics, each of which provide massive evidence demonstrating the fact of evolution. [quote]"Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a preacher?"[/quote] False.  We have witnessed it in life and in the laboratory, and have massive evidence of its history.  The very basics of evolution are middle-school level science.  The basics of the scientific process are taught in grade school.  This student has demonstrated an absolute lack of knowledge of both. [quote]The class is in uproar. The student remains silent until the commotion has subsided. "To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, let me give you an example of what I mean." The student looks around the room, "Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's brain?" The class breaks out into laughter. "Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain, felt the professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, with all due respect, sir."[/quote] But of course they haven't SEEN it.  But there's evidence of it.  For instance, the knowledge that the brain controls nerve function in the body through experimentation.  It then follows that, when witnessing nerve function, this serves as evidence of the presence of a brain.  It's not a question of sight, for cryin' out loud, it's a question of EVIDENCE. [quote]"So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your lectures, sir?" Now the room is silent. The professor just stares at the student, his face unreadable. Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers, "I guess you'll have to take them on faith."[/quote] No one who can attain the position of professor would be unable to conceive the arguments I've just presented, even if flustered by a snippy student.  This is a ridiculous answer.  Furthermore, a good professor doesn't expect his students to believe or trust his lectures, but to be prepared to learn from them, and challenge themselves intellectually with them.  If legitimate flaws can be found, a good professor would be pleased with any student who could find them.  Needless to say, the "flaws" this student points out are not legitimate. [quote]"Now, you accept that there is faith, and, in fact, faith exists with life," the student continues, now, sir, is there such a thing as evil?" Now uncertain, the professor responds, "Of course, there is. We see it everyday. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil." To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."[/quote] Well, I would have to take issue with believing in "evil" as a thing.  It is simply a label we ascribe to certain actions we deem unworthy of our respect.  Even with that in mind, the argument is a non sequitur, because while darkness is in fact the absence of light, "evil" however we may define it, is a proactive behavioral choice carried out by humans. [quote]The professor sat down. If you read it all the way through and had a smile on your face when you finished, mail it to your friends and family. PS: The student was Albert Einstein.[/quote] Obviously nonsense.  Albert Einstein was an atheist, as he repeatedly confirmed in his correspondence. Bob

Science and the Supernatural

There is a long-standing tradition which requires that science deals only with natural explanations for natural phenomena, and thus can have nothing to say about the supernatural (defined as anything that exists outside of nature). While largely true, this way of thinking is all but useless in the real world. Sadly, we live in a society in which people are willing to believe the craziest bullshit imaginable--and much of this consists of supernaturalism.

We need a lot of people to fight against this decline of the intellectual climate. There are several groups of people qualified to do so: skilled investigative journalists, conjurors, and scientists (among others, but these are the primary movers and shakers in the skeptical community).

Investigative journalists are useful for two reasons. First, they have those investigative skills that allow them to get inside the scam organizations and find the truth at the bottom of these ridiculous notions. At least equally important is that they have the communicative skills to report their findings, in an understandable manner, to the public at large.

Conjurors are useful because many of the supernaturalists are, in fact, using age-old conjuror's techniques to achieve their so-called miracles. The psychics, for instance, use a method of cold reading in a majority of cases. And even when they aren't using well-known conjuror's tricks, they're often exploiting the same psychological principles that the legitimate entertainer makes use of to achieve certain effects. There is no group of people more qualified to detect trickery than professional tricksters.

But scientists are perhaps most important of all, because contrary to the common "science has nothing to say about the supernatural" humbug, these actually are scientific questions. The claim that science can't study the supernatural is true, but only in an esoteric sense. In any useful sense, science has a lot to say about these issues.

When people are talking about the supernatural, they're talking about events that operate outside of nature. However, in almost all cases, these supposedly supernatural events actually do (allegedly) have natural, physical manifestations. Anything that is detectable by human perception has some form of physical manifestation.

If the claim is that a house is haunted, there's going to be some physical manifestation. Either an apparition will show itself, or the ghost will create "cold spots" or knock on walls, or slam doors, or any other cliche from old horror films. These are all physical manifestations.

If the claim is that dowsing can detect water, that's not a supernatural claim. If true, it's a physical manifestation.

If the claim is that psychics can communicate with the dead, then something is interacting with the natural world.

If the claim is that there is a god, that's going to have physical manifestations. Some Deist gods may prove to be an exception, as they are not said to interact with the physical world. But the various gods that people actually worship certainly would have physical manifestations. Answering prayers, performing miracles, forgiving sins, creating universes: these are all physical manifestations.

My point is that, even if an event or being is said to be supernatural (whatever that is!), it has physical attributes. If it has no physical attributes at all, then no one is even going to be talking about it. It doesn't do anything for their life, it's impossible to detect, and makes no difference in human affairs. I don't believe that these things exist, but it's impossible for science to disprove them. We can call these "purely" supernatural phenomena, and the old adage that science has nothing to do with the supernatural actually does apply here.

But all the "supernatural" things people talk about in religions or New Age fairs, actually are well within the proper domain of science. Even if the being is supernatural (and thus, undetectable by science), it somehow interacts with the natural world. So its effects can be detected and can be studied by science.

For instance, if your claim is that there is a supernatural god who, say, answers prayers, how is that detectable by scientific means? The god may be supernatural, but the efficacy of prayer is within the natural realm and is certainly a matter for science to decide. In this case, all you have to do is run a statistical analysis to determine whether prayer significantly improves, say, the healing speed of hospital patients. When this experiment was performed by the Templeton Foundation, they had some interesting findings.

The patients were divided into three groups. One group was prayed for and not told about it. One group was not prayed for and not told about it. One group was prayed for and told so. The first two groups both demonstrated average recovery. The third group actually experienced a "nocebo" effect and had a prolonged recovery time.

This is a perfect example of science studying the supernatural. Of course Christian theologians were quick to criticize the study's research protocols (which, despite my dislike for the Templeton Foundation, were actually quite good), but they were just upset because someone had actually bothered to prove them wrong.

Related to the idea that science can't study the supernatural (whatever that is!) is the concept of NOMA, or nonoverlapping magisteria. As much as I respect and admire Stephen Jay Gould as a thinker and a scientists, I cannot forgive him for supporting and popularizing NOMA as a valid way of thinking--it is not! Gould wrote, "[T]he magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty)."

On this point, Gould is dead wrong. He correctly identifies what science has to do with, but incorrectly gives ultimate meaning (which cannot actually exist) and worse, morality, to religion. After all that religion has done to society, I can think of fewer actions more misguided than allowing religion any more room to comment on morality. Religious morality promotes bigotry, stupidity, and murder.

But Gould's greatest mistake is in assuming that all religion does is "ultimate meaning and moral value." If that were the extent of religion, I would have no problem with it, and would agree with Gould's assessment. The problem is that ultimate meaning seems, to me, a red herring. Science can reveal the universe as it really is. Ultimate meaning, it seems to me, is simply what we as individuals and societies make of that universe. There is no "ultimate" meaning. There is only personal meaning. Science, it is true, does not have much to do with personal philosophy. It also doesn't have much to do with moral philosophy (though there are some minor points of overlap, despite Gould's assertion to the contrary). If religion weren't about supernaturalism or a magic man in the sky, Gould would be correct to give morality to it. However, religionists are not the most moral, nor the most intelligent people in the world. Any morality that modern religion (or any religion as it has ever existed in the history of the human race) gives us is guaranteed to be horribly skewed by supernaturalism. Gould argues for NOMA while considering the almost atheistic "religion" of many sophisticated theologians, forgetting that more than half of the American population still believes the Universe is less than 10,000 years old.

This debate over NOMA has created strange bedfellows. Many Christians, unsatisfied with the blind faith given them by their preachers and holy books, think that science should set out to prove their religion correct. These people are certainly opposed to NOMA. On the other hand, many other Christians realize that NOMA is their best protection from scientific scrutiny. They may not be satisfied with blind faith, but at least they're safe from falsification.

A lot of atheists and scientists (almost all scientists are atheists--food for thought) are on my side. They see NOMA for what it is--a last ditch effort to save religion from proper scientific scrutiny and debate. As such, we argue against it with all our might, because we know that the best way to kill religion is to expose it to the light of science, under which it cannot help but to shrivel.

On the other hand, such thoughts are not politically correct. There are those who think we need to take this battle one step at a time. For instance, American biologists are currently in a state of war against creationism. For these biologists, perhaps it is a safer tactic to make every attempt to keep science and religion separate. They are rightly concerned that many religious individuals will, if science and religion are forced into conflict, choose to ditch science and keep religion. It's a valid concern, and one I cannot answer to a particularly satisfying degree. Politically speaking, perhaps it is better to keep religion and science separate, if for no other reason than to keep funding and trick the religious IDiots into avoiding their conflicts with science.

And of course there are plenty of evolutionists who are also religionists, including some respected and noteworthy biologists. I don't understand how they can reconcile scientific truth with their Bronze Age mythologies, but they seem not to have a problem doing so.

But that still doesn't make NOMA true! We can discuss politics and tactics until the cows come home, if we want. But I actually care what is true, so I cannot support a proposition that goes against what I know to be true. Religion makes scientific claims, and should be subjected to scientific scrutiny. The same goes for all other forms of supernaturalism as well.

The controversy over evolution and creationism is but a single skirmish in a larger battle, I think. Perhaps in this skirmish, NOMA is a tactically sound position to defend. But in the larger battle, it will only cost us more in the future. It may be that we're best to leave NOMA where it belongs, accept the difficulty that causes in our present skirmish, and move on. If we do this, once our current fight against creationism has been won, we will have an easier time defeating religion, supernaturalism, and irrationality in general.

Unfortunately, many scientists disagree with me--at least publicly. In 1999, the National Academy of Sciences supported NOMA: "[S]cience and religion occupy two separate realms of human experience. Demanding that they be combined detracts from the glory of each." I'm not entirely convinced that they don't take this stance simply to protect their funding and political standing in a country dominated by mindless creationists. But the fact that they popularize this stance will not be useful to us in the future.

Science can indeed study the supernatural (as long as it has natural manifestations--as all supernatural phenomena in which people believe do). It's just that supernaturalists don't like what science discovers about them, and scientists don't like it when supernaturalists threaten their funding.

Keep it natural!

Bob

An Open Letter to Patrick Greene

Background info: I'm a frequent viewer/listener of The Atheist Experience, a public access call-in television program in Austin, Texas, sponsored by the Atheist Community of Austin. For those curious, I watch the pre-recorded programs on Google Video, links to which you can find from the show's website. On this week's program was one Patrick Greene, an atheist (worth points in his favor, but not enough to save his reputation from the spanking Matt Dillahunty handed him on the show) offended by a bumper sticker.

Perhaps I should explain. It all started off innocently enough. While driving, he saw an anti-atheist bumper sticker, and later discovered it was sold by Ray Comfort's ministry (to whom I will not link you, because they deserve no free publicity). He wrote a letter of complaint to the ministry:

Your Item #500 Atheist Day bumper sticker is a very un-Christian insult to all atheists. Just because your Bible states something, does not mandate that you use this information to insult atheists like me.

I am not a fool, and I want you to change the wording of your sticker. The average driver can easily read the words:

NATIONAL ATHEIST'S DAY
APRIL 1ST

But the words of Psalm 14:1, which are below these words, cannot be easily seen by any motorist.

My life as an American Atheist has been unalterably changed by your bumper sticker. I would never be elected to any political position in our country, because your bumper sticker has poisoned most believers minds.

I demand that you use your own savior's command to Love your neighbor as yourself, and change your bumper sticker to read something like this:

PSALM 14:1 SHOULD BE READ

I understand that the U.S. Constitution guarantees you freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. However, that does not give you unlimited license to publicly insult those who do not share your beliefs.

If, by August 23, 2008 your bumper sticker has not been changed on your web site, I will file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas, in San Antonio, and have a restraining order issued to order you to change your sticker.

Yeah, I'm sure they're running for the hills, right? I mean, even Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, as stupid as they are, are intelligent enough to realize they've got the Constitution on their side in this case. They read that letter on the show (and I dug it up on the Internet later, to get the wording right). As it turns out, he almost had some success. They took that particular bumper sticker off of the online website, apparently, but they're now giving it away for free!

On the show, he requested that both believers and non-believers should send him an e-mail (his address was provided on the air, but I will not provide it here) with their thoughts on the matter. I've decided to post mine publicly.

Sir,

Since you requested feedback during your segment on The Atheist Experience, I feel no hesitation about joining in the inevitable choir of viewer/listener backlash.

Your actions, as I understand them from listening to the show, are completely unjustified. They betray not only an ignorance of the Constitution but a blatant disregard for the Constitution, the rights of the individuals you find offensive, and the rights of all individuals to speak freely. I feel confident in assuming that if a Christian threatened to sue you for displaying an atheist friendly bumper sticker on the back of your car, you would be as outraged at their actions as I am at your actions. Yet, do you not see the hypocrisy here? One can only be assured that he has freedom of expression if he is willing to allow the same freedom to everyone, including those he finds offensive.

You are right that the freedom of speech has certain limitations, but you are incorrect in your assessment thereof. Your cliched example of shouting "fire" in a theatre does not illustrate the point I assume you wish to make, because this illustration is an example, essentially, of inciting a riot and endangering the lives of the occupants of said theatre. This limitation does not apply to shouting fire if there actually is a fire, nor does it apply to the performers on stage shouting the same as part of their performance. It has nothing, in fact, to do with the actual action of shouting that there is a fire. The limitation is not on the word, but on the intended or actual consequences of the shouted word or phrase. The limitation is on endangering the public, and nothing more.

A bumper sticker, obviously intended simply to be humorous, endangers no one, and in fact, causes no harm whatsoever. I will repeat Mr. Dillahunty's challenge from the show: demonstrate how you were harmed by an individual expressing himself through a bumper sticker that agrees with his own opinions. The bumper sticker did not assault you, rape you, murder you. It did not take or damage your possessions, and it did not have an impact on your income. The only effects the bumper sticker apparently had upon you were not the fault of the bumper sticker, but the fault of your own inability to take a joke and move on. Any damages, real or imagined, were self-inflicted, and certainly not grounds for a lawsuit.

There was a brief mention of a lawsuit related, I believe, to a city displaying a nativity scene during the holiday season. We have similar displays where I live, and I have mixed feelings about them. On the one hand, a city displaying religious symbols as part of a holiday display is a violation of the Constitution--UNLESS they display icons, in equal numbers and of equal prominence, related to ALL religions (a ridiculous notion, which can be dismissed on grounds of practicality), and a lawsuit on these grounds is Constitutionally justified. On the other hand, it's not a battle I'm inclined to fight, because I think there are more important things to do that won't make atheists look petty (for instance, fighting the tax exempt status of religious institutions). I think the best solution to this problem is to keep the holiday displays, but remove religious symbolism, but again, it's not a high priority for me.

But this has nothing to do with your threatened lawsuit. An individual's right to free expression is much, much, much more far reaching than the government's. Because the government is public and tax funded, it must remain religiously neutral. Individuals are not public and not tax funded and are not so limited. These ideas are quite clearly expressed in the First Amendment, which I strongly suggest you read again until you understand it.

Legally, your threatened lawsuit is unjustified and, I believe, unjustifiable. Morally, it is also unjustifiable, as it is an act of shameless censorship (or attempted censorship), which I can never support. Free societies can only prosper in conditions under which there is a free and open exchange of ideas--and this includes the bad ones! The moral action to take against offensive ideas is to rationally counter them. Use your own free speech, don't censor theirs.

And it is also tactically misguided. It diverts attention from real issues, such as faith based initiatives or tax exemption of churches. It paints a picture in the public mind of atheists as humorless, litigious bullies with nothing better to do with our time than to put unjustified pressure on private citizens for exercising their free expression. It proves the bumper sticker's point, by demonstrating the atheist (in this case, yourself) to be a damned fool. And it emboldens the enemy. Already, they've started giving the stickers away for free (clearly just to prove that they will not be bullied). And if you do attempt to file a lawsuit (which will either be dismissed or lost, I assure you), I'm confident that Christians will reciprocate. Unfortunately, their target will not be limited to only yourself, but rather, they will attack the atheist community as a whole, thus making us all suffer for your lack judgment.

Whenever an atheist rightly sues over the inclusion of god in the Pledge or on the money, the media portray him or her as a villain. I agree with those atheists (but not you) in principle, but question the tactical decision (again, it seems there are more important battles to be fighting). If you do file a lawsuit, the media will portray you as a villain. Though the media's portrayal of someone as evil does not necessarily make it so, they would be correct in this case. Unfortunately, the media, always eager to please the Christian majority, will wrongfully include the rest of us in the same category.

Am I glad that the bumper sticker has been taken down? Of course not. While I find the message objectionable, as do you, I will defend to the death their right to display that message. Furthermore, all that has now happened is further proliferation of the same bumper sticker, at no cost, to even more gullible Christians. All you have accomplished, is to worsen your own perceived problem--and, perhaps, to create real problems for all of us.

You, sir, have only proven these Christians correct. Your actions have indeed been foolish. I strongly urge you to reconsider them.

As requested, I've copied this e-mail to the hosts & crew of The Atheist Experience.

Sincerely,

Robert Lewis
Colorado

Since I sent this e-mail, I've discovered that my fears have indeed been confirmed. Ray Comfort, one of the most cynical, uneducated, and notorious creationists currently polluting the intellectual culture, is making fun of Patrick, and using his failures against all of us.

Of course, Comfort's not very good at making fun of people. Indeed, his response to Patrick's letter is little more than repetition of all of his discredited creationist arguments. Still, it's a testament to just how powerful a single atheist's lack of judgment can be. One man with a bug up his butt about a bumper sticker attracted the personal attention and insults of one of the most famous and most idiotic men in the world.

Congratulations, Patrick. You've made me take Ray Comfort's side on an issue. Happy now, god damn it?

Bob

Is 'Design' Used Intelligently?

In the latest issue of the scientific journal Nature, Richard Sever turns his focus on the word "design" (Nature 454, 27 (3 July 2008)). He argues that many biologists use a lazy linguistic shorthand when they mention the word in describing something that occurs in nature. For instance: "The bird's wing is designed for flight."

Of course we all know that it wasn't actually designed. Design is a word used for purposeful planning. In order for there to be design, as Ray Comfort and his lot are always pointing out to unsuspecting passers-by, there must be a designer.

We have a very good understanding of biological diversity, and even know, in some detail, the mechanisms by which evolution continues to operate. So by simple necessity, there is no such designer. Evolution requires us to realize that biological diversity is not the result of any form of "intelligent design."

This is the gist of Sever's argument, and he will find no substantial disagreement here. Especially when talking with the public, we must be extremely careful about the words we choose to use. But I think more important than the fact that "design" is used only as a sort of intellectual shorthand, is the question of why we must be so damned careful about it in the first place.

And the answer is simple: creationists, and lots of them. They are always eager to quote biologists out of context to make it seem like real scientists support their intellectually suicidal position, even though the truth is quite the opposite. The creationists are quite fond of quote-mining, as it is one of the few things they are actually able to do with some efficiency (they've failed completely in all other intellectual pursuits).

For instance, in 1980, Stephen Jay Gould wrote: "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and notes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils."

This is quoted out of context in countless creationist books, websites, videos, etc. But they either completely fail to grasp what he's talking about, or they're deliberately lying about it to prop up their own position. Gould did not argue that there are no "transitional forms." He argued that transitions between SPECIES are rare (not that none exist). Transitions between larger groups, however, are quite common. The fossil record is rich with them. You are encouraged to read Donald Prothero's book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters (Columbia, 2007) for more examples than you know what to do with.

If creationists are going so far as to quote Gould out of context, even though he's one of the most famous paleontologists of recent years (largely due to his--somewhat controversial--contributions to evolutionary biology), surely they will have no hesitation to quote anyone else out of context if any of us dare to use "design" as a bit of lazy shorthand.

So strategically, I'm in complete agreement with Sever. His assessment of the situation is quite accurate as far as I can tell. So you're warned: if a biologist does happen to mention "design," he doesn't mean "intelligent design." And if a creationist quotes a real scientist, I'll bet you my lunch money that it's out of context (or an outright fabrication).